Mistress of Redemption (21 page)

and see who we really are. What

makes us evil.”

Nathan’s gaze lifted as light caught

the mirrors. The woman still lay

before him trembling, her fingers

clenched helplessly into fists and the

manacles holding her taut on the

stone tablet, but all around them the

mirrors were rising from the walls.

No longer embedded, they were

suspended in the air and rotating on

their axes. It seemed they moved

together as well as individually,

giving the impression the room was

moving. Disorienting him.

Dona pressed her full breasts against

his back, her hands on his hips

steadying him as he lurched. When

her hand reached under his arm and

closed on his wrist holding the whip,

he tensed.

“You’ve never struck a woman. I find

that intriguing, considering how much

you hate us. Would you be able to

bring this whip down if it were me

helpless as she is? My legs spread so

you could whip my cunt, mark my

back until there was only blood?”

“No…
No
. I don’t…hate women.”

“I know that.” Her touch dropped,

her palm stroking over him. “But we

make you very angry. We frighten

you.”

She lifted up on her toes, whispered

in his ear. “What you really want is

to be the one lying on this altar,

waiting for my lash. For me to bring

you the pain, deliver it to you like a

gift. Ah… You got harder the moment

the words left my mouth.” When she

closed her hand over him as much as

the pants allowed, he couldn’t help

moving forward, pressing against her

hand. “You need to look into the

other mirrors.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Yes, you do. You’ve never known

what it means, Mistress and slave,

but you’ve wanted to, so much.

You’ve made it about vengeance and

denied yourself true submission.

That’s what will help you find what

you really want. Look into the other

mirrors.”

82

Mistress of Redemption

He kept his gaze stubbornly glued to

the reflection of her face in that one

mirror directly before them.

“Whether you want a soul mate or

not, tell me you care about me.

I know I’m not goddamned imagining

it.”

He needed to know there was

someone at his back, even if he didn’t

deserve to have her there. Even if the

idea that someone could guard his

back in Hell was laughable, like

asking for a glass of ice water and

expecting to quench the fire. But there

it was. He didn’t see any other way

he was going to find the courage to

do what she commanded.

“Yes,” she said at last. “I care about

you. Nathan.” She said his name

softly. It was as if she had kissed

him, held her lips to his for that

never-long-enough feeling of

acknowledgement, completion. “But

love isn’t about seeing someone with

blinders on, though we all wish it

was. Nothing is easy about love. As

your Mistresses found out.

You made them dependent with your

games and tore them down piece by

piece.”

He wasn’t prepared when she

reached down, seized his wrist and

snapped it forward. The flogger

struck the pale skin of the woman’s

ass and she jumped, whimpering.

Nathan wrenched his arm away,

dropping the weapon, but Dona

shoved him.

Stumbling forward, he fell full across

the bound woman, his hips and cock

against her ass, his stomach and chest

pressed into the contours of her back.

The broad set of his shoulders

sheltered her neck. Gargoyles of

stone at each corner of the stone table

came to life. Before he could yell or

jerk back in startled horror, they’d

seized his wrists in their jaws,

stretched him out so his nose was

pressed into the crown of the

woman’s head. Their teeth bore

down on his skin with painful

pressure.

They captured his ankles in a similar

fashion and pulled them out to flank

the outside of the woman’s legs so

his full weight lay upon her and his

cock was even more aware of the

creases of her most private areas.

Though he could not see her eyes,

tears ran from beneath her blindfold.

Her quivering lips pressed hard

against the gag, small muffled sounds

escaping from behind it, the only

thing she could do since the gag

prevented her from screaming. She

smelled of blood, sweat and sex, a

potent combination to his cock.

“What do you want, Nathan?” Dona

had picked up the whip and it flicked

around her, reached out to sting his

ankles. “Do you want this

punishment? Will you take the lash

for her?”

“I’ll take it from you. I want it from

you.” He tried to sound unaffected,

but noted the hoarseness of his own

voice when Dona stepped forward to

curl her hand around his now bare

testicles, squeezed. “I don’t know

why you bother with the jeans if

you’re just going to keep taking them

off me.”

“Because I can’t decide which way I

like your ass better. In or out of them.

So I’m enjoying both. My own little

indulgence.”

Indulgence was the right word for it.

Nathan had a firm, perfect ass, one of

the best Dona had ever seen. It was a

testament to his ferocity and

determination that he hadn’t 83

Joey W. Hill

been raped in prison far more often.

She wished the moment called for a

paddle, because she would have

liked to make those muscular cheeks

turn red with her strokes, watch him

get harder at the stimulus. His

buttocks would clench as he rubbed

his cock against the woman beneath

him involuntarily until the stimulation

from Dona’s spanking and the

woman’s bare skin made him spill

his seed on her. Dona could imagine

the way his shoulders would flex, the

trembling strain of his powerful

thighs, the taut rebellion in his face as

his Mistress nevertheless made him

come at her command.

Then again, she liked watching him

walk in jeans. The way he’d looked

when she picked him up, the denim

holding him with just the right

snugness at his ass and groin, the long

thighs. He had a confidence when he

walked. That casual sexiness that

said he was aware he was packing a

cock that no sane woman would

refuse, because he knew exactly how

to use it.

The true bad boy… Her bad boy.

She stroked one of the cheeks,

following the curve with her fingers,

the tight line between his buttocks.

When he relaxed at her touch, her

pussy clutched at the evidence that he

was making himself open to her.

“You’d be such a wonderful sub if

you just let yourself.”

His head shifted as much as he could

move it. She saw one blue eye staring

cautiously at one of the mirrors to see

her better. “Maybe I just need the

right Mistress.

You said as much.”

“The right Mistress who knows when

you’re bullshitting her with charm

and when you’re not. I think you’re

angling for a spanking.”

He raised a brow, and that wryness

passed through his expression again.

“There’s a difference between

bullshit and teasing, Mistress. I

submit to your judgment.”

Dona felt her lips quirk despite

herself. Nathan had a dry sense of

humor that his Jonathan side had

never displayed, so the evidence of it

now both amused and pleased her.

Progress.

When his Mistress gave him an arch

look, Nathan thought she did that

well, going from intense emotion and

pain to flirtation in a blink. Used to

extremes of pain, he had enough room

in his brain despite his present

circumstances to appreciate it. So he

growled, lifting his hips when she

reached between his legs and pricked

his cock with those sharpened nails.

With Dona’s hands on him, her thighs

brushing the back of his, he saw his

body in the mirrors, stretched out

over the captured woman’s in a

deceptively protective pose, self-

sacrificing. He looked powerful, but

here he was, helpless to the woman

who circled them, whom he

outweighed and towered over, but

who dominated his vision and his

mind as he strained to see her. As he

watched her lift another whip, a

simple quirt, he felt his cock harden

to pre-orgasmic rigidity, knowing

what was coming.

Dona’s breath left her, the sound

she’d made when she brought his lips

to her cunt at the oasis. As if all her

nerves had drawn up in excitement.

Damn if his cock didn’t 84

Mistress of Redemption

leak at the sound of her arousal, even

as his back flinched when the whip

came down, a stinging blow.

She didn’t stop with that one stroke.

His confidence at looking in the

mirrors increased, for all he saw was

her, wielding the quirt as his cock

throbbed against the firm ass beneath

him, that aroused organ all too

cognizant of the bound woman’s

pussy and anal passage so close, so

accessible. However, it was the

pussy and ass of the woman behind

him that captivated his attention as

she shifted to land the strikes. He

wanted to kneel between her legs

again and run his tongue over the

slick material, seduce her into

peeling it off, letting him plunge into

the soft folds behind it. Grip her

buttocks and squeeze, holding her to

his mouth.

“You warmed up, sweet thing?”

Dona straddled his bare thigh,

rubbing her crotch slowly up and

down the length. Bending down, she

let her hair brush his warmly

smarting bare ass as her lips touched

his left buttock, nipped him. “You

want to fuck her, tied up helpless

beneath you? It’s the only control

you’ve got. I suggest you stick that

big, hard cock into her now, because

in about thirty seconds you’re only

going to know pain. Maybe the suck

of her cunt on your hard dick will

distract you.”

He gritted his teeth and refused to

move, though he could feel how it

would take him in, her hot wetness.

He was sure it was more of Dona’s

sorcery, how vividly he was

imagining it.

“No?” Her voice softened, just a

minute amount, but his sharpened

senses caught it.

He’d pleased her and that was worth

anything. Had to be. “Faithful slave.

Your choice, then.”

She picked up the cat, tossed the quirt

away. He’d never been struck by a

metal-tipped flogger, but he knew the

quirt would feel like a feather in

comparison. He took a shallow

breath, his hands starting to curl into

fists. Then he stopped, made them

relax.

Let her see he would take her

punishment. Welcome it. Pressing his

face into the woman’s hair, he heard

her whimper as he set his teeth to a

stranger’s shoulder to keep from

crying out.

The whip tore flesh on its very first

strike. Dona brought it whistling

down with strength on the length of

his back, licking at his shoulder. It

snagged, pulling skin and telling him

the tips had been barbed. He was

wrong. He hadn’t anticipated this

level of pain. Holy God, that hurt.

Because the bindings held him so

taut, he was denied even the minute

relief of thrashing. The woman had

gone rigid in fear and his cock was

trapped in the channel between her

buttocks, feeling the quivering clench

of her ass.

He’d used a metal-tipped, barbed cat

before. Not expertly. He’d flogged

Detective Mac Nighthorse with one

at the S&M Killer’s behest. As he’d

torn open the man’s back, he’d

rationalized that he was making

superficial cuts, just a little more

over the top than a flogging with

more commonly used BDSM tools.

What the hell had he been thinking?

85

Joey W. Hill

Another lash fell. Another. Pain was

fire, sweat and blood beginning to

burn across the field of his skin. The

woman beneath him shuddered as he

bit down, reacting to each strike.

Staccato flashes of thought strobed

through his mind, adding to the agony.

Was Dona right? Was he like the

S&M Killer? Had he hated

Nighthorse that much? Had there

been a moment he’d
wanted
her to

kill the cop? Maybe that’s why he’d

gotten five years when his attorney

estimated three. The judge had

sensed it in him, the potential.